{"id":33198,"date":"2025-03-01T16:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T16:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usapress.info\/?p=33198"},"modified":"2025-03-01T16:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T16:03:21","slug":"man-ate-a-slug-after-a-dare-resulting-in-a-tragic-outcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usapress.info\/?p=33198","title":{"rendered":"Man ate a slug after a dare, resulting in a tragic outcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

A silly dare among a group of friends turned into a tragedy that left a young man paralyzed and then claimed his life.<\/p>\n

When 19-year-old Sam Ballard\u00a0gulped a slug after being dared by his friends, he never assumed his life would change for the worse.<\/h3>\n

Shortly\u00a0after the stunt, Ballard complained of leg pain, which doctors believed to be a multiple sclerosis, a disease his father suffered from. However, it was later determined that the young man contracted rat lungworm, a parasitic infection found in rodents that can also infect snails and slugs through the larvae in their feces.<\/p>\n

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Sam Ballard \/ Facebook<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It didn\u2019t take long before the promising rugby player lost the ability to walk.<\/h2>\n

Speaking of the day Ballard made the tragic choice to eat that slug, one of his friends, Jimmy Galvin, recalled, \u201cWe were sitting, having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown-ups and a slug came crawling across.\u00a0The conversation came, \u2018should I eat it?\u2019 [and] off Sam went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, the infection affected Ballard\u2019s brain. He contracted meningitis and was left in coma for 420 days. When he finally woke up, doctors determined he had brain damage.<\/p>\n

Over the years following the incident, he did regain some use of his limbs but still needed to be fed.<\/p>\n

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Danny Aarons | News Corp Australia<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The disease hadn\u2019t affected his mental abilities, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s in there, 100%,\u201d Galvin told\u00a0The Sunday Project<\/em>. \u201cI apologized to Sam about everything that happened that night in the backyard. And he just started bawling his eyes out. I know he\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, Sam Ballard passed away eight years after gulping the snail and contracting the awful disease.<\/h2>\n